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A L U M N I U M AG AZ I NE

Page 14

Volume 69 Number 1

SUMMER 1993

Features 14

26

32

42

The Science and Art of Futurism American technology—and the industries it supports—will survive in the competitive world of the future only if managers anticipate trends.

Written byMcKinley Conway

On His Own ('.roomed for success, James I). Robinson 111 didn't wait lor it to come. Written by Jerry Schwartz Nanotechnology: The Big World of Small Georgia Tech researchers are shaping the future, one tiny part tit a time. The develop­ing technology could offer amazing oppor­tunities in many fields, Written by Christopher Stanard

A Breath of Fresh Air An electric family car may be decades away, but until then, other clean-burning fuels could provide a little extra breathing room. Written by deny Goettling

Page 42

Departments

Cover Photo: Nanotechnology, trie of the biggest

technological itf/< to/iinents in s< tence,

is so smell it's hard to imagine. Here's one

analnyr A nanometer-— one billionth of a meter-—

is in si:e to a meter as a beai blxtU ts to the earth.

4 Letters «

Learning article pertinent; Peril of prediction.

7 Technotes Distinguished company; Three in a row; Relay team on track; No. I Buz/,; T Day; Homecoming reminder; Happy days; Marathoners take the Pi; Honor roll; Housing reunion.

5 1 Pacesetters Lamar Pedis. IB '49: Truck-stop entrepreneur.

5 5 Research The real ozone villain; Bonding chips; Traffic management; Robot teamwork; Circuit .simulator.

6 2 Profile Dr. James I). Foley: Leading a friendly revolution.

GEORGIA TECH ALUMNI MAGAZINE is published quarterly for Roll (.'all contributors by the Georgia Tech . Uumni Association. Send correspondence and changes of address /<». GB KGIA TECH ALUMNI MAGAZINE, Alumni Faculty l louse, 22s North Avenue N\v. Atlanta. GA 30332-0175 • Editorial: (404) 853-0760/0761 Advertising: (404) 894-9270 • Fax: ( 104)894 5113

Page .12

u.i, nnuiiiiivi/iii 0 1993 Georgia Tech Alumni Association • ISSN; 1061-9747

GEORGIA TECH • Contents 3

John C. Dunn, editor Gary Goettling, associate

editor Gary Meek

photography Everett Hullum, design Dudley Williamson,

advertising Jerry Schwartz, Christopher Stanard, McKinley Conway,

contributing writers

Publications Committee Chairman Louis Gordon Sawyer Sr.,

NS '46 Chairman, Sawyer-Riley-Compton, Atlanta

Members William "Guy" Arledge, IM

71 Manager/Advertising, BellSouth Corp., Atlanta

McKinley "Mac" Conway Jr., GE'40 President, Conway Data Inc., Norcross, Ga.

Hubert L. Harris Jr., IM '65 President, Investco Services Inc., Atlanta

McAllister "Mac" Isaacs III, TEX'60 Executive Editor, Textile World, Atlanta

George A. Stewart Jr., AE '69 President, Stewart Consulting Group, Dumvoody, Ga.

James M. Langley Vice President External Affairs, Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta

JohnB. Carter Jr., IE'69 Vice President and Executive Director, Geoigia Tech Alumni Association, Atlanta

Dudley C. Williamson, IMGT 74 Associate Vice President/ Associate Executive Direc­tor, Georgia Tech Alumni Association, Atlanta

Learning Article Pertinent for Times

Editor: I appreciated the pertinent article on

"Learning Organizations," [Spring '93 ALUMNI MAGAZINE], which noted Tech's active continuing-education efforts. This important area interfaces with its graduates and industry. I have sent copies of the article to our entire execu­tive manage­ment team. The article was timely for me because I have been assisting my

company in developing a total learning program to upgrade the organization's skills and knowledge.

As technical services manager of DesignTex Fabrics, I am involved in the training and information updating of our personnel as well as providing seminar services to our architectural, interior design and facility management clients and industry.

Also of interest should be the types of specialized courses we have devel­oped in the New York metropolitan area educational institutions for interior designers, architects and related profes­sionals. As chair of professional devel­opment of the N.Y. chapter of the Insti­tute of Business Designers, I have been part of a joint professional organiza­tional effort of developing accredited programs for our associations, using existing courses or developing new ones as needed.

Perhaps it was as a graduate student in textile engineering that I was in­spired with the need for special semi­nars. As a member of the Graduate

Senate, we organized a seminar pro­gram where graduate students pre­sented these to their fellow students and faculty.

Martin E. "Marty" Gurian. MS MS '68 Woodside, N.Y.

Photophone Prediction Editor:

The article about fiber optics in the spring magazine reminded me of my career experiences at AT&T, and of an article from The New York Times that I had framed and hung on my office wall. Dated Aug. 30, 1880, it reads in part:

"The American Association of Scientif­ic Persons...held a very interesting meet­ing at Cambridge on Friday last, in the course of which Prof. Bell...described his new invention, the photophone....

"What the telephone accomplishes with the help of a wire the photophone accomplishes with the aid t >f a SLinbeam....jrhe ordinary man. however, may have a little difficulty in compre­hending how sunbeams are to be used. Does Prof. Bell intend to connect Bos­ton and Cambridge, for example, with a line of sunbeams hung on telegraph posts, and, if so, what diameter are the sunbeams to be, and how is he to ob­tain them of the required size? What will become of his sunbeams after the sun goes down? . . . .

"The public has a great deal of confi­dence in Scientific Persons, but until it actually sees a man going through the streets with a coil of No. 12 sunbeams on his shoulder, and suspending it from pole to pole, there will be a general feeling that there is something about Prof. Bell's photophone which places a tremendous strain on human credulity."

Thomas B. Gurley, EE '59 Decatur, Ga.

4 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

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Daniel Papp is the Distinguished Professor Award recipient

Distinguished Company

Dr. Daniel S. Papp, director of the School of International Affairs, received the 1993 Distin­guished Professor Award at the annual Faculty/Staff Honors luncheon on May 26.

Dr. Bettina F. Cothran, assistant professor of mod­ern languages, and Dr. Laurence J. Jacobs, assis­tant professor in civil engi­neering, were named Out­standing Teachers, while Dr. William J. Wepfer, asso­ciate director of graduate studies in mechanical engi­neering, received the Out­

standing Service Award. An award for outstanding interdisciplinary activity was presented to Dr. Rob­ert E. Fulton, a professor in mechanical engineering.

Dr. Barbara Blackbourn, a professor of modern lan­guages, received the ANAK award.

In addition, 10-year ser­vice-recognition certificates were presented to two members of the Alumni Association staff: John B. Carter Jr., IE '69, executive director, and Pamela W. Cottrell, associate director for Roll Call.

Three in a Row

All-American golfer David Duval won his first Atlantic Coast Conference individual championship title and the Jackets won their third straight confer­ence title at the ACC Championship in Rocky Mount, N.C., last April. Duval, a senior, turned in rounds of 70, 69 and 67, finishing four strokes up on Clemson's Nicky Goetze. The Tech team finished the tourney five strokes ahead of No. 2 Clemson.

Relay Team on Track

Tech's men's 4x400 relay team took first place while the team placed seventh overall at the NCAA indoor track-and-field meet in Indianapolis in March. The championship re­lay squad—All-Ameri­can Derek Mills, Guy Robinson, Julian Ame-dee and Derrick Adkins —posted a time of 3:06.23. Mills also placed third in the 400-meter dash.

No. 1 Buzz A panel of judges has

confirmed what Yellow Jackets fans already know: Buzz is the No. 1 mascot in the country.

The occasion was the annual collegiate mascot and cheerleading competi­tion finals, held at Sea World in San Diego last April. The Tech cheerlead­ers finished 10th among the 15 squads in the finals, making it their third top-10 finish in the past four years.

Buzz, who also won the top honor in 1988, has been played by Kevin Mawn and Glenn Goodrich this year.

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TechNotes

T-Day Accompanied by warm

sunshine and the strains of a Dixieland jazz band, more than 900 alumni and friends dug into lunch plat­ters at the annual T-Day barbeque, held outside the Old Gym on Bobby Dodd Way. Sponsored by the metro Atlanta Georgia Tech clubs, the meal pre­cedes the traditional spring

intra-squad football scrim­mage, in which the Blue team outlasted the White by a 16-12 score.

Ticket sales from the barbeque and game raise money for the Dodd-Car-michael Scholarship Fund. Last year, Tech clubs pro­vided six $1,000 Dodd-Carmichael scholarships to high school seniors.

Homecoming Reminder

Homecoming weekend of Nov. 5-6 is last approaching. Reunions will be held by the classes of 1943, 1948,1953,1958,1963, 1968, 1973,1978 and 1983. The class of Old Gold, comprised of alumni who graduated in 1942 and earlier, will also meet. For more informa­tion about reunions or any other Homecom­ing activities, call Catherine Martin at the Alumni Association at (404) 853-0758.

Happy Days With the number of Roll Call donors tracking ahead of

last year's record-setting pace, Georgia Tech President John P. Crecine and Alumni Association President H. Hammond "Buck" Stilh Jr., CE '58, had plenty to smile about at the Presidents' Dinner on May 7. The annual affair honors Roll Call contributors of $1,000 or more, and was held at the Inforum in downtown Atlanta.

The 46th Roll Call, which closes its books on June 30, is Tech's largest source of unrestricted gift funds. The goal for this year's drive is $5.5 million from 26,000 con­tributors. (See the Roll Call art on page 9-)

Georgia Tech Alumni Association Board of Trustees Officers G. William Knight IE '62, MS IM '68

president H. Hammond Stith Jr. CE '58

past president Frank H. Maier Jr. IM '60

president-elect/treasuivr H. Milton Stewart IE '61

vice president/activities Hubert L Harris Jr. IM '65

vice pivsident/communications Francis N. Spears CE 73, MS CE '80

vice president/Roll Call John B. Carter Jr. IE '69

vice president/executive director James M. Langley

vice president, external aJJ'airs

Trustees A.F. Beacham Jr. IE '60 William Hagood Bellinger EE '63 Charles G. Betty ChE 79 James W. Bowyer CE '64, MS SANE '66 Richard H. Bradfield ARCH '60 L Guyton Branch Mgt 71 Carey H. Brown IE '69 Albert W. Culbreth Jr., IM '68 Fred L. Cook TCH 71, PhD 75 Thomas F. Davenport Jr. IE '56 Charles F. Easleyjr. IM '86 Dwight Evans CE 70, MS SANE 73 Janice Carol I larden IE 74 Paul W. Heard Jr. ME '65 L. Andrew Hearn Jr. EE '57 J. Scott Howell ISyE 75 Douglas W. Johnson IM '65 David R. Jones IM '59

Govantez L. Lowndes II Jon Samuel Martin IM '6 David M. McKenney Pin Francis B. Mewborn, Cls Charles D. Moseleyjr. II G. David Peake IE '61 Thomas J. Pierce Jr. Chi Linda Poger-Williams CE J. Lamar Reese Jr. IM '55 Neal Allen Robertson IF B. Jane Skelton IM 77 Haywood F. Solomon Jr. Louis Terrell Sovey Jr. IE William P. Sovey IE '55 Neal D. Stubblefield MF, Harry B. Thompson III 11 Rene L. Turner IE '83 Philip S. Vincent IE '66

'83

s '60, IE '64 '56 '65

'61 '81

69

IM 70 72

70 '. '()()

1 0 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

TechMes

Meg Grantham and Gabriel Helrnlinger display their trophies.

Marathoners Take Pi Gabriel Helrnlinger, a mechanical engineering doctoral

student from France, and Meg Grantham, a research as­sistant in the ME bioengineering lab, were the first male and female runners to cross the finish line at the 21st an­nual George C. Griffin Pi Mile Memorial Road Race.

Helrnlinger, a marathon runner who won the event last year, finished with a time of 15:19, besting his previ­ous winning time of 16:37. Last year he placed second in the Peachtree Road Race.

Grantham, also a marathon runner, posted a time of 19:20. It was her first time to compete in the Pi Mile race, and she was surprised by her victory. "This is my first 5-kilometer race in almost a year," she said. "I'm just get­ting back into short-distance training. I'm very happy that I ran a 19:20."

Honor Roll

For the third time in five years, Georgia Tech has .. earned a place on the Col­lege Football Association's Honor Roll.

To be eligible for the recognition, an institution must have a graduation rate of 70 percent or better for its football players. Tech was one of 19 schools listed on the cur­rent Honor Roll, which is based on the performance of the freshmen entering school in 1987.

"The No. 1 priority of our football program is the education of our student-athletes," said Coach Bill Lewis. "We are totally com­mitted to ensuring that ev­ery Georgia Tech football player earns his degree, and this honor is evidence of that committment."

Housing Reunion Sine, being an RA was no picnic,

but at least you're being invited to one. The Georgia Tech Housing Office is trying to identify those former students who have over the years been known variously as inspectors, counselors, resident assistants or peer counselors— in short, anyone who has had a "duty card" on their door, according to Linda Henson, IE '84, Housing Office project coordinator. The office plans to hold a reuni( in of its former student employ­ees and I Iall Council members during Homer oming weekend. The gathering

will likely be a family picnic on Sun­day, Nov. 7, and will include tours of renovated and new residence halls. To be placed on the reunion mailing list, call Henson at (404) 894-2469.

Thankyou to the official

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GEORGIA TECH

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Futurism

American technology—and the indus­tries it supports—will survive in the competitive future in direct proportion to its ability to interpret the trends

Written by McKinley Conway

A generation ago, when things moved

/ ,A more slowly, the economic system

J L ML was more tolerant of firms that failed

to anticipate change. Today, failure to antici­

pate change can be abruptly fatal.

That's why many large companies employ

technological forecasters or futurists devoted to

the study of future trends and their implications

for the company.

Few doubt that technology will be a

dominant political and economic issue of the

1 4 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

SUPER METRO AREAS The leading cities of the world will, in most

cases, have two or more perimeter routes integrat­

ing the center city with the

hinterland. The design concept of a loop

highway encircling a city

has moved rap­idly from the status of a traf­fic by pass, to an economic development

tool, to the urban plan for the 21st century. Many

central cities will become multilevel

environments, with one level below ground,

another at grade and a third built on ait-rights. There will be widespread construction over freeways and service corridors.

Out on the Prey L et's accept the fact that our error rate in

i forecasting may he large! We probably miss one-third to one-half of all the big developments that will occur in a forecast period of 10 years. Our 20-year forecasts are even less reliable, and our 30-year predictions are, for the most pari, pure speculation.

NEAR-TERM FORECASTS, 0-10 YEARS

GENETK MIENCE REVOLl V Discoveries in genetic engineet ing will have a pro-found effect on politics, econom

ics, homes

and families.

In 1990, Congress funded the I luman Genome Project, a massive effort to map all ol the genes knmCi in the human body. The result will he a guide t< > the 50,000 to too.OOO genes which control everything from vulnerability to dis­

ease t< > physical features. The use of 1)NA techniques for

Identification will be rapidly expanded, beginning with infants

anil criminals, massive data

banks will he-created. The possi­bilities for social and pi>litical contntversy are endless. People with "bad" genes may not he offered better jobs. Insur­ance firms nia\ refuse to cover indi­viduals likely to encounter specific health problems

iverbial limb

,i'M ^ ' * . ' *

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or someone

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BY MCKINLEY CONWAY

It seems safe to assume that the changes of the next. 10 years will be at least as numerous and dramatic as those of the past three decades. The time-scale of development will continue to collapse, with changes occurring with increasing frequency.

This is no time for the timid! World leadership will go to those who have the

imagination and creative ahility, the managerial genius and the courage to venture into unplatted areas. Mewing the world scene, some scholars suggest that ue are witnessing the end of history. The truth is that we are at the beginning of a bright new business world. Above and on the pages ahead, let's take a look at what is possible.

GEORGIA TECH • Futurism: The Art of Planning 1 5

Futurists are most concerned with events Ukety in the next two decades, especially advances in technology.

future. Many believe that scientific prowess will be the key to world leadership. Certainly the art of predicting upcoming events—futur­ism—will also play an important role.

Thinking years ahead gives us warnings about such possibilities as global warming, ozone depletion, over-population, species extinction and many other hazards. Via futur­ism we can identify threats and gain lead time in which we can, it is hoped, take effective counteraction.

Futurism thus serves the early warning needs of nations and cities with regard to matters of security and quality of life. For companies and business ventures, futurism is a key factor in competitive survival and growth.

Futurists are generally concerned with events that may happen in the next 10 to 20 years. They are particularly interested in new technological breakthroughs and the impact of those break­throughs on society.

A distinction is thus drawn between futur­ists and, for example, mar­ket researchers, w h o are interested in a 0-10 time scale, and who typically evaluate already-identified trends. At the other end are science-fiction writers and philoso­phers w h o look 30, even hundreds of years ahead. They speculate on what could hap­pen, even if they do not know how it could happen.

tmmmm POPULATION CONTROL The nations of the world will finally implement a realistic program for u

controlling population as the general public becomes aware thai • A • , many < >l the \\< irld's pies-, W tt m wt m

ing problems—waste dis- • • • • posal, traffic, urban sprawl M I I M Al and environmental degrada lion—are directly connected ti population growth.

i V k\ M h

m • • • n

i

Margin of Error A t any point in time there are unseen

/ >m forces at work which will yield sur-r™TM prises in the days ahead. No one. of

Jm» J ^ course, can forecast all the events which will occur.

Examples abound, but consider the U.S. government's 1930s study of coming technical developments. It failed to forecast such inno-

DOMED CITIES AND BUBBI \RMS There's a fast-moving trend toward innovative use of huge tent like dome structures. Agribusinesses sec the pros-pert for new "bubble farms" in vvliich thousands of acres are covered by dome units to protect tender seedlings as well as to control the growth i if new genetically engineered crops. Dome enclosures may be particularly suitable for new towns in the Arctic- anil other cold regions. Planners also see the pos­sibility of using such structures on the ocean floor to re direct currents and create new fishing zones.

16 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

NEAR-TERM FORECASTS, 0-10 YEARS

* * * * * * * * *

GEORGIA TECH • Futurism: The Art of Planning 1 7

The task of forecasting the future is made more difficult by the ever-increasing speed of development

vations as television, transoceanic jet service, lasers or microcomputers.

More recently, during the war in Kuwait, there was much gloom-and-doom forecasting by certain prominent scientists who predicted that the smoke from burning oil wells would cause global climate changes—a sort of "nuclear winter." They were badly wrong because they made a number of incorrect assumptions regarding the amount of smoke, its color and composition, and the altitude to which it would rise.

There are similar questions regarding fore­casts of global warming, ozone depletion and other atmospheric changes. Scientists cannot agree on past events, let alone the future— witness the variety of explanations for the death of the dinosaurs or the'decline of vari­ous civilizations.

Our task is made more difficult by the ever-increasing speed of development. The transoceanic jetliner that flew in the late 1950s took about 15 years to advance from lab tests to commercial flight. The microcomputer exploded onto the scene during the 1970s in less than 10 years. With computerized design and automated manufacturing, we currently have the prospect of important new products having a gestation period measured in months or days.

Exploiting Change I he technological forecasting objective of most business managers can be Ti defined very simply—the avoidance of surprises. Many will settle for that.

But the more astute managers want some­thing more. They are not just trying to defend themselves against change—they are deter­mined to take advantage of change and use it for their own benefit. They want to gain a competitive edge by outguessing the opposi­tion.

It is a long-established axiom that without change there are no new opportunities. Almost every change brings with it exciting new opportunities for someone. Further, we know that there are three essential factors in

A GLOBAL SOCIFIY The next decade will see the emergence of a new global society made tip largely of executives of global firms, gov-ernmen! officials and others who have learned how to be at

1 8 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

NEAR-TERM FORECASTS, 0-10 YEARS

home v\ herever they are. These new "globalists' are com­fortable with a 24-hour cloek set to universal time, the metric system, cur­rency conversions and international telephone connec­tions. Most impor­

tant, the globalists are eager to apply new technologies. Already, many of them cany in their briefcases a small satellite antenna which permits them to receive inlorma-tion wherever they may be.

DESALINATED SEAWATER Breakthroughs in a process to desalinate seavvater using solar energy will foster tremendous develop­ment in some of the world's arid regions. Areas likely to ben­efit include Baja California, the Atacama Desert in South America, and areas along the Ara­bian (rulf,

Ai\m-pommoN CRUSADE 'lite coming de­cade will see an unprecedented global commit­ment to large-scale- projects aimed at destroy­ing nuclear Weapons, cleaning up toxic wastes, conserving rain forests and repair­ing damaged environments.

19

Few firms develop operating plans covering more than five years—two years is long-range for many.

exploiting change: anticipating the change, being able to act quickly, and willingness to bet on one's forecast. Many people may an­ticipate change, but few are both willing and able to take advantage of it.

life Cycle/Recycle rM M 7 There or when does this process ^ ^L I start? The systems must be cus-W W tomized, of course, to fit the orga-• • nization. However, there are some

common denominators. The alert firm must have both a long-range

plan and a long-range outlook. The former is a projected business activity and operations sequence. It is what the firm expects to do.

How far into the future sh'ould it go? There was a time when large corporations had for­mal plans for 10 years ahead, and some even prepared 20-year plans. Today, few firms attempt to develop operating plans covering more than five years, and many consider a two-year plan to be long-range.

A generation ago, a typical product life cycle was 15 to 20 years. A finn that obtained a patent could hope to enjoy a strong market position for the life of that patent, 17 years. A product that held market position for 10 to 15 years was commonplace.

Under such conditions, decision-making was much easier. Managers could make commitments for new plants and equipment and feel confident that they would see a good return on investment over a period of years. Similarly, they could recruit, train develop staff and could look toward years of service from them. '/

In today's vola­tile economy, good decision­making can be very difficult. Many product life cyles are measured in months, requiring great flexibility in the company's physical plan. Will

FASTER FLIGHT The first decade of the 21st century will see the introduction of exciting new air­craft. A new generation of supersonic transport will fly at about three nines the speed of sound with a range of 10,000 miles. Trips to the opposite side of the world will take less than half ol the present times. A new trans-atmospheric vehicle will afford virtual space travel for global executives, and will cut the time from the U.S. to Tokyo or Sydney to less than two hours. The effect on world busi­ness and government will be profound.

2 0 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

SMART CARS AND SMART ROADS These are .systems wherein vehicles are operated b\ auto­matic conlrols along specific routes. By the turn of the cen­tury, some munici­palities will approve the operation of rohot-run vehicles On designated routes. I se will in­crease rapidly, and by 2010 robot ve­hicles will become

the feeder units lor mass transit systems. Eventu ally, improvet systems will serve high­speed traffic on

the inlerstates. improving traffic How and safer],

ALTERNATIVE ENERGY Solar power will

become a signifi­cant economic factor in areas with abundant sunshine. The merit of hydrogen as a new fuel will also be realized.

GEORGIA TECH • Futurism: The Art of Planning 2 1

In the days ahead, the CEO must develop an educated guess about future possibilities.

the new plant being occupied this year be suitable for producing the new product—as yet unidentified—to be launched three years hence?

These are some of the reasons that many companies are depending heavily on detailed one-year plans plus very sketchy five-year plans.

The collapsing time scale also requires companies to prepare their long-range plans more quickly. A plan developed slowly and deliberately over a year's time may be obso­lete before it is promulgated. To develop valid plans quickly, most companies need to maintain vital data bases and employ auto­mated systems for interpreting data and mak­ing instant extrapolations.

Vision of the Future

Unlike the business plan, the long-range outlook is simply a vision of what may be coming. There are no constraints, economic or other, on

the outlook. It can be "far out" and purely speculative.

The outlook should extend as far into the future as possible to foresee even a hint of change. It may include programs and projects that are now but a gleam in someone's eye.

In the days ahead, the CEO must become a practicing futurist. By observing business associates, by intuition, and even through such informal processes as reading the news­papers, the CEO must develop an educated guess about future possibilities.

Technological breakthroughs are happen­ing more and more quickly. And while that makes it more difficult to predict future devel­opments, companies that completely ignore this change of pace will pay dearly. •

McKinley Conway Jr., GE '40, is founder and chairman of Conway Data Inc. in Atlanta, founder of the Industrial Development Research Council and chairman of the World Development Council. This article is adapted from his book, A Glimpse of the Future— Technology Forecasts for Global Strategists.

22 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

[.UNO, I \H IR1 I M \ l K s i n

RESTORING SENSES New discoveries in biotechnology will give artificial eyesight to the blind, hearing to the ileal'and voice to the mute. Millions of dysfunctional people will be elevated to new roles as more productive citizens.

NUCLEAR WASTE Effective means for neutralizing old nuclear wastes will be discovered. Already there is serious research into various trans­mutation schemes which use neutron bombardment to convert wastes into shorter lived isotopes. Eventually, such a

process could convert hot wastes into non-radioactive materials.

VERY LONG-TERM FORECASTS, 20-30 YEARS

'

\£S.V . . . .; ._ . . __ ' ^y

BRAIN-COMPULER LINK The most exciting prospect is linking

the human brain to a computer, allowing people to download thoughts or

Upload infor­mation. The

genius of great men and women

could thus

be saved, stored and used again. The uploading mode would revolu­tionize education.

ASTEROID DISASTER PLAN The world will have in place a system to prevent disastrous colli­sions. It will con­sist of batteries of huge missiles which can be fired at incoming asteroids to alter their course.

HUMAN-POWERED FLIGHT Improvements in the strength/ weight ratio in materials and in the efficiency of

aerodynamic

components wi l l make

human-pow­ered flight possible for non-athletes Fi applications will b in recreation, as pedaling around ll neighborhood at treetop height will supplant jogging ll many.

SPACE TOURISM Space travel will become common­place, with rival companies offering inexpensive trips to

the moon. Space colonics will be established to sup pott mining and manufacturing op­erations as well as to handle tourists.

GEORGIA TECH • Futurism: The Art of Planning

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James D. Robinson hasn't waited for success; he's gone after it. Written by Jerry Schwartz

PHOTOGRAPHED BY JOHN ABBOTT

On His Own

t^Kmmim w v H H t e i LHOUGH JAMES DIXON R< IBINSON III

WAS BORN INTO ONE OF ATLANTA'S MOST PROMINENT BANKING FAMILIES, THE 1 9 5 7 GRAIN ATE OF

GEORGIA TECH'S SCHOOL OF INDUSTRIAL MANAGEMENT HAS NOT BEEN ONE TO WAIT FOR SI ICCESS

AND PROMINENCE TO COME TO HIM. FT WHILE MANY OF HIS PEERS MIGHT FLAVE BEEN CONTENT TO

ACCEPT FAMILY WEALTH AND AN AMERICAN EXPRESS GOLD CARD, JPM ROBINSON WENT TO NEW

YORK AND GOT AMERICAN EXPRESS—THE WHOLE COMPANY, ft AT AGE 41, ROBINSON WAS

NAMED CHAIRMAN AND CHIEF EXECUTIVE OFFICER OF AMERICAN EXPRESS C o . CASUAL OBSERVERS

F7 MAY HAVE VIEWED ROBINSON'S RISE AS AN EASY RIDE ON RAILS GREASED BY FAMILY CONNECTIONS.

ft BUT BY THE TIME FTE LEFT AMEMCAN EXPRESS EARLIER THIS YEAR FOLLOWING A GRI IES< IMELY

PUBLIC BLOODBATH INSIDE THE COMPANY'S BOARD OF DIRECTORS, IT WAS CLEAR THAT ROBINSON

WAS A MAN WHO HAD OUT-WORKED AND OUT-THOUGHT SOME OF THE COUNTRY'S BEST BI SINESS I

EXECUTIVES TO ATTAIN HIS POSITION . . . AND A MAN NOT AFRAID OF A FIGHT TO MAINTAIN IT.

2 6 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

The

"I got a little more focused when I went into the Navy. Whatever water I drank, it made me a little more competitive than others."

P7

Cmtpetkme

-JLoU I

Urge

HAVE TO GIVE JlMMY

CREDIT, SAYS WILLIS EVERETT, AN EXECLRTTVE WITH

AN ATLANTA MONEY-MANAGEMENT FIRM AND A

BOYHOOD FRIEND OF ROBINSON'S. "A LOT OF THE

GUYS IN HIS PEER GROUP STAYED AROUND ATLANTA

waiting for a fat and happy job. But some­where along the line Jimmy decided he wanted to make it on his own. He sure did it, too. I don't know, but that might have had something to do with his father."

James Robinson Jr., known as "Big Jim," had been president of First National Bank of Atlanta (now Wachovia Bank). Before that, his grandfather and great grandfather also had been prominent Atlanta bankers.

But where "Big Jim" was an imposing 6-foot, 4-inches and 200 pounds, his son was a slender 5-foot, 8-inch, 125-pound splinter. During his Tech career, Robinson began an all-out weight-lifting regime that by gradua­tion transformed the bantamweight into a chiseled 205-pound match for any linebacker.

That program—both the physical-fitness routine and the intense competitiveness— became a way of life he has kept up, and even intensified, to this day. "My father was a very tough-minded fellow," Robinson told one interviewer. "However hard I was work­ing, he'd say, 'Work a little harder.' "

It was a philosophy that didn't immedi­ately take root, Robinson admits. Maximum effort was not a part of his modus operandi at Georgia Tech. "Well, I can tell you about Tech, but I'm not sure it's an answer you're going to like," Robinson says. "I had been at prep school in Virginia. I'd been away for four years and I decided to go to Tech, in part, because I wanted to get back to Atlanta.

"I imagined that I would go into banking or financial services rather than engineering, so that's_ how I picked the industrial manage­ment school. I have to say Georgia Tech was easy for me. I was on the dean's list most of the time. In hindsight, I might have done better to go into electrical engineering or one of the tougher schools down there. But I enjoyed myself and graduated early."

"I think he did reasonably well with a minimum of effort," says Wade Mitchell, ex­ecutive vice president of Trust Company Bank and a Tech classmate of Robinson's.

"Probably the bulk of his time and attention was spent socializing, having a good time and going to school to get four years older."

Robinson went on to the Navy, became a supply officer, and reconnected with his boy­hood pal, Everett, when both 'were stationed in Hawaii. "I have to say the impression I recall of Jimmy from Pearl Harbor was of someone you'd call an officer and a gentle­man," Everett says. "My wife and I would see him and his wife for dinner and cocktails. I'm not sure I was aware at that point that he was a really driven person. It was clear he had a very quick mind. He did have a sense of humor, but it was not visible all the time."

Things changed when Robinson got to Harvard and began work on his MBA. "I had taken some correspondence courses while I was in the Navy and I had some experience at Trust Company of Georgia," Robinson recalls. "When I got to Harvard, I felt that I had a leg up on everybody because I had done those things. It didn't take me long to realize that my associates who had come from other backgrounds, who had learned in undergraduate school to think in the scien­tific, reasoning fashion, were going to outdis­tance me. I had the trade tools, but I didn't have the perspective," Robinson says. Com­pared to his Tech career, the Harvard MBA program was a struggle, he concedes.

Robinson says he's always been consumed by a desire to succeed, even though it may not always have been obvious to his associ­ates. "When I found something that interested me, I pursued it aggressively. But I think I got a little more focused when I went into the Navy. Whatever water I drank, it made me a little more competitive than some others."

an Flash MVeJibi

D Y THE TIME HE COMPLETED

HIS MBA, ROBINSON ALREADY WAS A MAN MARKED

FOR STARDOM. "EVERYBODY IN TOWN WANTED TO

HIRE HIM WHEN HE CAME OUT OF HARVARD,"

HOWARD CLARK SR. TOLD BUSINESSWEEK IN

1988. It was nice that "everybody" was inter­ested in Robinson, but the fact that Howard Clark Sr. wanted to hire Robinson became significant because Clark had decided he would retire early as chairman of American Express. After watching Robinson zoom up

2 8 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

the corporate ladder, first at Morgan Guaranty Trust Co. and later at White, Weld & Co., Clark indirectly offered Robinson the oppor­tunity to join a dozen or so other men in the sweepstakes to succeed him at the AmEx helm. In that class of heavyweight contend­ers, it was James D. Robinson III who emerged as champion.

Seven years after he joined AmEx, Robinson was named chairman and chief executive officer, beginning a 16-year tenure at the head of one of the nation's most presti­gious financial institutions.

Robinson and his second wife, Republican Party activist and public-relations executive Linda Gosden, were decidedly on New York society's "A" list. They counted among their friends—and Robinson's and those of AmEx board of directors colleagues—Henry Kissin­ger, opera star Beverly Sills, Urban League director Vernon Jordan and former President Gerald Ford. Jim Robinson was hardly out of place in such rarefied company. His voice carries a reserved, patrician air. He speaks in the confident, but measured cadence of dip­lomats and successful executives. The Robinsons were trendy, attractive, success­ful—even thing coveted in New York's pent­houses and board rooms.

But there was more than flash in Robinson's approach to his job at AmEx, according to accounts of his associates. He had an immense appetite for work, and con­sumed information with the voraciousness of a mainframe computer.

Every moment counted: Flights were work

sessions; upon landing, Robinson would trade finished papers for a briefcase of new work needing his attention. Each year, prior to American Express annual meetings, Robinson required key executives to prepare exhaustive summaries of any questions likely to be asked by shareholders, along with the appropriate answers. Daily, Robinson was awake before dawn, throwing off the coils of sleep with an Olympian exercise routine, and on the way to AmEx's midtown office build­ing before the garbage trucks had cleared the streets.

And though his family tradition may have been in the old school of conservative corpo­rate management, Robinson was assuredly a man of his times—joining in the corporate acquisition binge of the 1980s with gusto. In 1981, Robinson led AmEx to a buyout of Shearson Loeb Rhoades. In quick succession, American Express acquired Investors Diversi­fied Services, Trade Development Bank, Lehman Brothers and E.F. Hutton Group.

BusinessWeek said Robinson's acquisition strategy was "widely considered the most successful financial-services diversification drive of the 1980s." And an Industry Week poll of corporate head hunters in 1986 named Robinson among "America's Most-Admired CEOs." It is ironic, perhaps, that the Industry Week Class of 1986 included John Akers of IBM, and Roger Smith of General Motors. By late last year, all three of those blue-chip companies were reporting huge losses, and all three men were out of their jobs.

Though press accounts of the hour-by-

li

During flights on the American Express corporate Gulfstreani, Robinson usually worked his way through a full brief­case of papers. When he landed, associates would hand him another full briefcase.

GEORGIA TECH • Robinson -On His Own" 2 9

"A CEO shouldn't go more than eight to 12 years, 15 at the outside One reason is burnout.. . But sometimes change for the sake of change is okay, too."

hour maneuvering at American Express paint a picture of Robinson as a man grimly deter­mined to hang onto corporate power, what­ever the cost, Robinson himself clearly is philosophical about his departure.

"I think there is a limited useful life for a CEO—10 to 12 years at the outside, seven or eight years probably is better. I stayed longer at American Express than I intended to.

"In the 1950s and 1960s, management turned over every five years because people aged. That was too fast for chief executives to set a direction and implement their strategies. But a CEO shouldn't go-more than eight to 12 years, 15 at the outside if you own a good part of the company.

"The reason for burnout is both the fresh­ness of capacity to look at what's going on and the ability to keep up. As you go along, there are always hotshots who are as good or better than you are. It's tremendously difficult to maintain momentum. The other aspect is that the world in that league is so competitive and aggressive, you've got to make it clear that there is room at the top for new blood or you're going to lose your young talent."

On the other hand, Robinson deplores a recent trend of almost management dujour, a switch in chief executives to fit every shift in business strategy. "There are times when the CEO's talents, because of the business situa­tion, must be more focused on cutting or on investing and acquisitions, or what have you. What you've got, hopefully, is the capacity to play on all those courts and the ability to

know how to manage through adversity. "Boards of directors probably are feeling

their responsibility more. Some of them try to prove that they are tough. But sometimes change for the sake of change is okay, too," Robinson says with a bit of a laugh.

A NtpP Ml'^om

-JL.HI- CHAl E CHANGE IN HIS OWN

LIFE SINCE LEAVING AMERICAN EXPRESS IN JANUARY

HAS BEEN GOOD FOR HIM, ROBINSON SAYS. H E ' S

BEGUN A NEW YORK COMPANY THAT W ILL MAKE

VENTURE CAPITAL INVESTMENTS IN NEW TH< :I I NOLOGIES.

"We're looking chiefly at information tech­nologies, interactive kind of stuff that's a mar­riage between telecommunications, distrib­uted computer database and media.'' Robinson says.

As to his penchant for physical fitness, it's only increased. "Absolutely," he says with emphasis. "I've stepped that up. 1 will put more discipline into getting to the gym."

Though he still carries a heavy workload, Robinson's grimly competitive zeal may have been tempered slightly by his American Ex­press experiences. With a hint of autumn in his voice, he says, "I haven't felt this free in 22 years." •

Jerry Schwartz is an Atlanta free-lance writer.

Robinson's competitive zeal has always found an outlet in exercise. He's stepped up the pace recently.

VI

3 0 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

NANOTECHNOLOGY

The Big World of Small By Christopher Stanard

Think small. Really

small. Got your old

high school micro­

scope? Not good

enough. Your handy computer

microchip? Still way too big.

ibhink about building machines

only a few molecules or atoms

in size—that is one as­

pect of nanotechnology, 50 /t0

a science of the future

that is being created today.

• Nanotechnology is a term that

encompasses scientific and engi­

neering activities at the nanom­

eter scale. A nanometer is one-

billionth of a meter, or only a

few atoms long. Using an array

3 2 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

of ultra-precise tools, scientists can create electric components and machines that are virtually invisible to the naked eye. Even genetic engineering and bioremediation, the use of microbes to eliminate hazardous wastes, fall under the broad definition of nanotechnology.

This is not science fiction but science fact. Two years have passed since IBM scientists spelled out their company logo by moving 35 xenon atoms with a device called a scanning-tunneling microscope. Yet in that short time, nanotechnology has demonstrated the poten­tial to become an important, pervasive tech­nology. Today, for example, microsensors tinier than the width of a human hair are routinely being used in automobile anti-lock braking systems.

G eorgia Tech Is Thiiiking Small

At Georgia Tech, electrical engineers, t physicists, chemists, materials scientists

and researchers from a host of other disci­plines are involved in a number of nanotech projects.

Dr. Richard Higgins, director of Georgia Tech's Microelectronics Research Center (MRC) and one of the leaders of the Institute's nanotechnology movement, groups most nanotechnology research into three areas: modeling, measuring and making.

Tech is involved in all three. The scanning-tunneling microscope is one

of the workhorses of nanotechnology, and the progenitor of all other atomic imaging devices. Developed in the early 1980s, it was the first device to actually provide pictures of atoms. It can also move individual atoms and molecules.

Dr. Phillip First of the School of Physics and the MRC has used the instrument to make and measure novel nanostructure-like "wires" a mere two atoms wide. The problem

is that such "wires" can't carry electricity like normal wires; they are so small that classical rules of physics break down and quantum mechanics effects take over.

Dr. Thomas Gaylord, Dr. Kevin Brennan, and Dr. Elias Glytsis of the School of Electri­cal Engineering and the MRC have figured out how to turn quantum mechanical disad­vantages into incredible advantages, which they believe will lead to a revolutionary new class of semiconductor devices using "elec­tron-wave optics." These devices would be smaller, faster, and less expensive than any­thing currently on the market.

This development has profound implica­tions. The growth of the $70 billion micro­electronics industry has been predicated on making computers smaller and smaller, which has been done by putting as many integrated circuits and transistors as possible on a micro­chip. (An Intel 486 microchip contains about 1.2 million components.)

The semiconductor industry is fast ap­proaching a size limit beyond which quantum mechanics will not allow conventional elec­tronics to work. The reason is that at about 0.25 micrometers, electrons start behaving like waves. But by using electron-optics tech­niques, the 0.25 micrometer "barrier" can be broken, allowing "ultraminiaturization down to the atomic scale," says Gaylord.

This will mean new growth in electronics, computers and manufacturing industries, and could even lead to an entirely new industry— nanoelectronics, he says.

c hip-size Computers

Recently, scientists at Bell Labs used . Gaylord's patented designs to fabricate

nanoscale devices with applications in "quan­tum electron wave-based lasers."

Cheaper and more versatile than conven­tional lasers, the devices "will be able to

Ultra-miniauirization will mean growth in electronics, computers and manufacturing, and could even lead to an entirely new industry, nanoelectronics.

Tech's Pliillip First uses the scanning-tunneling microscope to make and measure nanostrucUire-like "wires" a mere two atoms wide.

3 4 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

replace lasers the size of an entire table with lasers the size of a grain of salt," Gaylord says. "People have been working with lasers for over 20 years, but no one has ever thought of this approach."

Another result of Gaylord's work is "guided electron-wave integrated circuits." This would be the next generation in inte­grated circuits—"a multi-billion-dollar indus­try," he says. With this technology, you could

have "a powerful computer on a single 'quantum' semiconductor chip."

Tech physicist Dr. Uzi Landman's work with colleague Dr. David Luedtke in molecular modeling has made them recog­nized leaders in the field. Using a Cray supercomputer, they have produced com­puter-simulated "videos" of atomic interaction showing how a scanning-tunneling micro­scope can induce gold atoms to "jump"

Tech scientists have made the world's first magnetic microinductor and magnetic micromotor— gargantuan micromachines on an atomic scale, but a major step in the "small" direction.

A new etching technique may offer break­throughs in the next wave of micro­electronics development

'••

Small Advances By John Toon

A new electron-assisted LM etching technique

JL J L underdevelopment at Georgia Tech may permit routine fabrication of naiK tmeter-scale electronic devices without the surface damage caused by existing etching systems, says Dr. I LP. Gillis, associate profes­sor of chemistry at Georgia Tech.

"The impact on the microelectronics industry is tied to the ultimate impact of these devices, which will be quite important in the future."

Nanometer-scale devices boasting features a thousand times smaller than current circuits will fuel the next wave of development in the microelectronics industry, The technology, will also be

important for electro optic devices, Optica] processing and radiation detectors.

Gonventional ion-beam etching processes used to fabricate the tiny structures can damage their surfaces, altering optical and elec­tronic properties and poten­tially limiting how the result­ing devices can be used. Because of their mass and high levels of kinetic energy, the ion particles can disrupt the sensitive crystalline stun lure of the semiconduc­tor surface and introduce unwanted materials.

The (ieorgia Tech pro­cess, however, uses low-energy electrons in combi­nation with reactive hydro­gen gas to cut the required electronic features through the patterning process. Because the electrons are lighter and carry less energy, the technique does not damage the semiconductor surface.

"We deliver simulta­neously a beam of low-energy electrons and a

beam of reactive molecules," Gillis explains, "These two species come together at the surface and the electrons stimulate the chemistry Ite-tween the reactive beam and the surface. The reac­tion happens only at loca­tions where both the elec­tron beam and the reactive gas arrive."

Gillis estimates that at least two more years of work would be required to produce a practical process which could be used rou­tinely. While he does not expect the electron-assisted technique to replace con­ventional etching for the current generation of semi­conductor devices, he be­lieves it represents an alter­native fabrication method for future generations of nanometer-settle devices. •

John Toon is a writer with the (ieorgia 'lech Research Institute.

3 6 GEORGIA TECH • Slimmer 1993

across nanometers of space to coat a probe. These videos help scientists understand fric­tion forces between unlubricated metals.

M icromachines and Tech physicist Uzi Landman and col­leagues have pro­duced computer-simulated videos of atomic interaction that help scientists understand friction between metals.

Mcromotors Electrical engineering professor Dr. Mark

Allen is putting together some pretty im­pressive work of his own. Inside the MRC's futuristic clean-room, he is hard at work fash­ioning micromachines, microacruators and micromotors.

Allen's biggest challenges involve merging

the mechanical microstmctures with microcir-cuitry, developing new fabrication processes and developing new materials to advance the state of the art: Allen, working with PhD graduate students Chong Ahn and Yong Kim, has made the world's first magnetic micro-inductor and magnetic micromotor. Previous micromachines used electrostatic energy, but magnetic micromotors hold the potential to be much stronger, more durable, and more versatile. Allen stresses that what he is doing is not nanotechnology in the strictest sense— his micromachines are still gargantuan on an atomic scale. However, it is a major step in the "small" direction.

Also at the Microelectronics Research Cen­ter, Dr. Kevin Martin and PhD candidate M.

GEORGIA TECH • The Big World of Small 3 7

V/A/r A

A. Maldonado use a technique called elec­tron-beam lithography to cut and fashion nanoscale devices. Examples of devices they have fabricated include the world's smallest

World's Tiniest Buzz

No bigger than the diameter of a human hair, "nanoBuzz" was drawn by Dr. Kevin Martin of Georgia Tech's Microelectronics Research Center. He started with a silicon wafer and coated it with an ultra-thin layer of polymer film similar in makeup to plexiglass. The next step was to bake the piece. On a microscopic level, the wafer surface was covered

with a spaghetti-like tangle of

irregularly placed molecular chains. A beam of energetic electrons was fo­cused on the Wafer, where it cut the molecular chains as it was drawn across the film surface. A special developing solution eliminated all of the shorter polymer chains, leaving a tracing of the electron beam's path.

picture of Buzz, drawn with lines only a few nanometers wide; one-dimensional quantum wires for carrying electrons; zero-dimensional quantum dots; and electron turnstiles.

Martin and his associates do much of their work in the center's clean-room fabrication complex. In the same facility, Dr. Paul Kohl and PhD candidate Kirkland Voght of the School of Chemical Engineering use a process called chemical-vapor deposition to improve integrated circuits and semi­conductors used in computers and electronics.

Work on nanotechnology is steadily progressing at other uni­versities and laboratories in the U.S. The University of California at Berkeley and the National Nano-fabrication Facility at Cornell are leading the way in developing many new techniques. Scien­tists at the University of Califor­nia-Irvine have fabricated a battery only one-100th the size of a red blood cell. At the Mas­sachusetts Institute of Technol­ogy, Dr. Julius Revek Jr. has fashioned a molecule that can self-replicate, or copy itself. Du Pont scientists have de­signed a protein that can fold predictably. The world is getting smaller and smaller.

Japan's Small Priority

Japan, however, has embarked upon a national effort that

dwarfs anything seen in the United States. According to the journal Nature, "Nanotechnology...seems to become Japan's next priority target for industrial research."

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3 8 GEORGIA TECH • Slimmer 1993

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If the United States fails to pursue aggressively its research in nano-technology, it could become a pauper in the new techno­logical order.

v

Dr. Kevin Martin, left, and Dr. Richard Higgins, director of the Microelectronics Research Center, confer in the "clean room" fabrication complex of the center. There are several sophisticated processes in which materials are engi­neered on the atomic level. One such process, called electron-beam lithog­raphy, was used by Martin to draw a picture of Buzz with a line only a few nanometers wide (opposite page).

Japanese government and industry have teamed together to fund a number of nanotechnology projects through the Explor­atory Research in Advanced Technology (ERATO) program. The program funds groups of 15 to 20 researchers with up to $3 million per year to work on efforts such as:

• The Yoshida Nanomechanism Project, which is focused on furthering microengineering technology.

• The Aono Atomcraft Project, which ex­plores ways to move and bond atoms to create new materials.

• The Hotani Molecular Dynamics Assem­bly Project, which is concerned with molecu­lar self-assembly and production of "intelli­gent" materials.

The Japanese Ministry of International Trade and Industry encourages similar efforts at universities and research centers across the

country. Kyoto University now has a Depart­ment of Molecular Engineering, and Tokyo Tech is tackling nanoscience through its re­cently restructured interdisciplinary programs.

The bottom line is that if the U. S. fails to pursue aggressively its own lines of research in nanotechnology, it could very well become a pauper in the technological New World Order.

E rophet and Pitfalls

Dr. K. Eric Drexler of Stanford University has been a leading proponent and

prophet of this new science. "Nanotech-

GEORG1A TECH • The Big World of Small 3 9

The future of nanotechnology is practically uncharted Its most predictable accomplish­ments promise to be incre­dible. And the "science fiction" forecasts may someday prove more accurate.

nology will mean ... thorough and inexpen­sive control of matter," he says. Drexler envi­sions factories of nanomachines building everything from computers to cars, houses, roads and subway tunnels. In medicine, tiny nanorobots may be able to perform "closed-heart surgery" and other procedures without incisions. "Cellular surgery" may become the ultimate solution in the fight against the vi­ruses and bacteria that are rapidly adapting to resist today's treatments.

Nanotechnology will even be able to "build up and restructure tissue" and "elimi­nate viruses from the body," he says. "Even missing teeth could be regrown."

Skeptical? Yon-have- plenty of-company. Even though nanotechnology of some sort seems destined to become reality, Drexler goes too far for many of his colleagues.

"It's difficult to imagine. Somehow, I can't see it," says Georgia Tech's Martin of Drexler's radical predictions. Drexler is "overly optimistic," agrees Dr. Mark Allen, "but you never know." •

Christopher Stanard, IE '90, MS IE 92. is a process technician with Michelin in Greenville, S.C. He researched nanotechno­logy as part of his master's work in technology assessment.

AVMttolilliput The images below, among the smallest ever

recorded, were obtained with Georgia

Tech's scanning tunneling microscope

(STM)/ballastic electron emission micro-

sccpe (BTTM). Designed and constructed

entirely at Tech, the instrument is the only

one of its kind in the world capable of

BITM measurements at liquid helium

temperature (4.2K). The low temperatures

allow unprecedented energy resolution.

ABOVE: A graphite basal plane in which indi­vidual carbon atoms appear as bumps. ABOVE RIGHT: A carbon replica grating, shown it in detail one million times larger than

A

a single carbon atom image. Such extreme manipulation of atomic-size material offers great potential in many fields, from genetic engineering to atomic-waste disposal.

4 0 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

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A Breath of Fresh Air In the race for clean-burning auto fuels, the winner will be the planet By Gary Goettling

The first things to disappear were free highway maps. Then it was the gratu­itous oil check and windshield wash.

The next thing to depart from gas stations will likely be—gasoline.

Political and environmental pressures to clean up the air are forcing automakers and fuel suppliers to develop new clean-burning transportation fuels that would drastically reduce tailpipe emissions of hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and carbon monoxide.

"About 150 million Americans live in urban areas that consistently violate Federal air-quality standards," says Wayne Parker, IMGT 74, co-founder and general manager of the Clean Air Vehicle Association. "Despite tougher emissions requirements, the increas­ing use of cars and trucks has resulted in more air pollution. With over one-half billion vehicles operating worldwide, the planet's atmosphere is choking on the exhaust of gasoline and diesel fuels. As a result, the federal government has mandated a phased-in switch to clean-air fuels."

The Clean Air Vehicle Association is based in Atlanta, one of 20 U.S. cities currently violating the maximum limits of ground-level ozone concentration. The year-old non-profit group promotes the use of alternative fuels as a means of protecting air quality while reduc­ing dependence on overseas oil.

The umbrella term of alternative fuels includes compressed natural gas, methanol, propane and alco­hol/gasoline blends. Electricity is also considered a gasoline alterna­tive, but persistent (and, some

To demonstrate propane's compatibil­ity with various auto­motive engines, this 1929 Ford roadster

was modified to run on the fueL Propane, the most widely used alternative fuel, has

powered vehicles for more than 60 years.

would say, underfunded) technical problems have kept practical electric vehicles only a dream—at least for the near term.

The appeal for automakers and suppliers of fuels such as natural gas and propane is based on the here-and-now. All are currently available in large quantities, and work with existing automotive technology with only minor modifications. Conversion costs run anywhere from $1,500 to $3,500 per vehicle, and typically involve a new carburation de­vice and fuel tank, line and instrumentation. The selling points for the public are that clean fuels are cheaper than gasoline, vehicle main­tenance costs are lower, and there is no ap­preciable reduction in driving performance.

A major drawback for the motoring public is availability at the retail level. Amoco, the most active big-oil company behind the clean-fuel effort, has two retail stations in Atlanta selling compressed natural gas, al­though a company spokesman says that five more will be opened this year.

Safety is also a concern. Alcohol fuels are more toxic and corrosive than gasoline, but the other alternatives may actually be safer than gasoline. Steel tanks for natural gas and propane must meet certain structural criteria, and in fact can enhance the structural integ­rity of a vehicle.

Propane is the most widely used alterna­tive fuel in the U.S., powering about 350,000

vehicles. And although natural gas is a distant second with 30,000. it is well

positioned to become the primary alternative fuel of the future.

The main reasons: oil com-

4 2 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

/•! <"- Gornx iy ; xn vm.

panies and utility companies like it, and it costs 25 percent to 40 percent less than gaso­line.

But the race is not quite over. Detroit's Big Three automakers have each developed dedi­cated fuel vehicles as well as so-called flex­ible-fuel models that can operate on both gasoline and another fuel, usually methanol. Some industry observers, citing the difficult

Ford Motor Co. is marketing a Crown

Victoria that runs on compressed natural

gas. The car is in­tended primarily for

fleet use.

engineering challenges involved, say that flexible-fuel cars represent more the hedging on a specific alternative by automakers rather than a practical option—a half-step rather than a leap forward. In addition, the Alterna­tive Motor Fuels Act of 1988 provides incen­tives to car manufacturers that make clean-fueled vehicles that do not run on diesel or gasoline.

GEORGIA TECH • Alternative Fuels 4 3

But when evaluating clean fuels, "there may be no single winner," Parker says. "In time, we may find our choices for

fuel to be almost as broad as our choices in soft drinks."

That diversity was apparent at a recent Clean Air Vehicle Exposition in Atlanta spon­sored by CAVA. Dozens of cars and trucks were on display including a 1992 Ford Crown Victoria powered by compressed natural gas, a 1929 Propane-fueled roadster, a solar motor scooter and a Ford EcoStar—an electric panel truck the company says it will test in Europe next year.

Georgia Tech's contribution was a pro­pane-powered pickup truck, one of seven converted for the Physical Plant. Transporta­tion superintendent Jerry Turnbull hopes to expand the propane fleet to 50 vehicles over the next three years.

"We wanted to have clean-burning ve­hicles ready for the Olympics," says Turnbull, who reports that he has had fewer oil and spark-plug changes with the propane trucks, and is generally very satisfied with their per­formance.

The Olympics also provide a handy marker for a metro-wide effort to convert to clean fuels.

"The future is now for alternative fuels," says Jeff Rader, MS CP '87, chairman of CleanAir Transportation—Atlanta, a coalition of government and business that is working with the Department of Energy in its first alternative-fuels demonstration project.

"What this program will do is remove any doubt in the public's mind that alternative-fuel vehicles work and work well," Rader says. "At the same time, it will create a de­mand for the infrastructure such as refueling stations and mechanics, that are vitally neces­sary to overcome reluctance to purchase alternative-fueled vehicles."

Rader's group plans a campaign urging major purchasers in government and industry to purchase alternative-fuel vehicles, or convert existing fleets. An offshoot of the effort-will

P7

Alabama scientist Ed Passerini constructed

Ids solar-powered SunLighter with off-the-shelf materials;

even the photoelectric panels covering the car are readily avail­

able, he says.

be the public's increased awareness c >f clean fuels. The overall goal is to have 10,000 alter­native-fuel vehicles operating in the metro area by 1996.

"In 1996, Atlanta will be a showcase for the world," says Rader. "If we are successful in this effort, this showcase will include the world's largest urban concentration < >f pollu­tion-free vehicles."

If this push for alternative fuels seems imbued with a sense of urgency, you can thank Congress for getting the wheels rolling. Virtually unnoticed by the press and public, the 1990 Clean Air Act provides thai centrally fueled fleets of 10 or more vehicles must meet stringent low-emission standards in serious ozone non-attainment areas, and must start to purchase clean-fuel vehicles by 1998. By the year 2000, 70 percent of all newly purchased light- and medium-duty vehicles must operate on clean fuels.

The federal legislation also allows states to set their own emission standards. Smog-bound California quickly seized the initiative and has adopted a program requiring manu­facturers to produce—and sell—a rising per­centage of vehicles meeting increasingly rig­orous requirements over the next 10 years. At least 14 other states have adopted some as­pects of the California model.

The most interesting aspect of the Califor­nia plan requires that by 1998, two percent of all vehicles sold produce zero emissions. That figure escalates to 10 percent by the year 2003- And only one kind of vehicle produces no tailpipe emissions. In fact, it has no tailpipe.

"Eventually, whether it's 10 years from now or 30 years from now, we'll have a bat­tery and a charging system that will give you the 200- to 300-mile range that yon have with a gasoline vehicle," says Mark Zweeker, IE 73, president of EPTI, a battery research and

development firm, and a former director of the Geor­gia Office of Energy Re­sources. Most of the re-

* search and develop-19ESE&

4 4 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

GARY MEEK PHi

ment money is channeled into building a better battery, he adds, but only a small amount inter finding a better way to charge them. His company is involved in the latter activity.

Zwecker conceeds that even a nation of electric cars will not be completely free from environmental concerns. "Electric­

ity is a fossil fuel in that when you burn elec­tricity, you are in essence burning coal, and a smaller amount of nuclear energy." But he adds that sophisticated air-pollution control

Amoco Oil Co.'s service station in east Atlanta was one of the

first in the city to offer compressed natural gas to the

public. The company plans to have seven such outlets in the

metro area this year.

equipment at large, central coal-burning gen­erators would provide the additional electric­ity needed "without causing tremendous impacts on the environment."

Dr. Michael Meyer, director of Georgia Tech's Transportation Research and Educa­tion Center, agrees that electric vehicles will become commonplace, "certainly in the next 20-25 years."

The various alternative fuels actually repre­sent "a transition phase to the electric ve­hicle," says Meyer, noting that the gasoline alternatives also possess potential drawbacks of their own in terms of environmental im­pact, availability and cost. "Are we taking a risk of replacing one form of pollution with another form of pollution?" he asks. "There is some research that has to be done on some of these differently fueled vehicles to see what it is we're really getting ourselves into."

But Meyer doesn't completely write off alternative fuels, and envisions two kinds of motor vehicles designed for different travel needs. "You would have a family car for longer trips that would either be fossil-fuel based or some other fuel based, and one for commuter-type trips" that could be electric.

An intriguing possibility for the commuter car of the future was also on display at the CAVA exposition. Parked off by itself, looking very much out of place among the automo­tive muscle dominating the room was a boxy, three-wheeled contraption called the SuriLighter. Covered from front to back with rows of solar cells to charge its pair of batter­ies, the two-seater has a range of 30 miles, according to its creator, Ed Passerini. A pro­fessor at the University of Alabama, Passerini drives to work in the car, and says it can hold its own in traffic at a top speed of 45 mph.

With an engaging, low-key intensity, Passerini describes his SuriLighter as the most economical and environmentally friendly vehicle possible with current technology.

His hope and conviction is that one day America's highways will be filled with thou­sands of solar cars. His fear is that they will be made in Japan. •

GEORGIA TECH • Alternative Fuels 4 5

F/

WRITTEN BY GARY GOETTLING PHOTOGRAPHY BY GARY MEEK

ABOVE: Georgia Tech student Steve Marzec machines a part for the team's electric car while Brian Cox, EE '90 (left) and Lucas Grote confer about vehicle performance data. RIGHT: last-minute problems kept them out of the race, but Tech's Andy Sheiley, Grote and Marzac are ready to compete in next year's Grand Prix.

4 6 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

Hear Those Mighty Engines Purr?

The scene at

Atlanta Motor

Speedway on

May 15 could have

been just another

stock-car race. But

when the starter's

flag went down,

something was miss­

ing: there was no

mighty plume of

smoke, no 'whining

gears, no primal

engine roar.

In fact, none of

the vehicles had an

internal combustion

engine. They were

electric, and they

were out to make a

point.

"We have to face

the fact that petro-

Lucas Grote sands the car to prepare for the primer coat Most of the students'

time was spent fixing up the VW Rabbit to make it road-worthy. TOP: Grote checks connections on the lead-acid batteries used to power the Tech car. The team

used 20 six-volt, high-density batteries that recharges in 12 hours.

GEORGIA TECH • Alternative Fuels 4 7

environmental costs

from the tremendous

amount of pollution

cars generate, and

political costs be­

cause most of the

world's oil is in a

politically unstable

region."

The Clean Air

Grand Prix was part

of a three-day expo­

sition sponsored by

CAVA to highlight

the feasibility of

alternative fuels,

including electricity.

The Grand Prix in­

volved student teams

from 11 Southeastern

universities who had

converted similar

stock-compacts to

electric power. Most

of the hardware,

including the cars,

was donated ex­

pressly for the event.

The students had

similar controllers

and 20 hp electric

motors, with greater

flexibility in battery

configurations. The

event featured com­

petitions to test en­

ergy efficiency, ac­

celeration, endur­

ance, range and

workmanship. The

vehicles also raced

on the speedway's

high-banked oval

and one-mile infield

courses. The Grand

Prix was the first

such competition

ever held in the

region, says Parker,

who would like for

the race to become

an annual event.

A group of

/ » (

£ \ Tech students gained their

first experience with

electric cars by

converting a Volks­

wagen Rabbit for the

race.

Unfortunately,

late technical difficul­

ties forced the team

to watch from the

P / Muscle power pushes Clemson's entry to the starting line of the Clean Air Grand Prix. The 17-members of Clemson's Alternative Automotive Technologies group prepared the electric vehicle as part of their mechanical engineering senior design course. In the end, their work wasn't quite enough. The Tiger vehicle came in second to the University of Central Florida, whose car won overall honors and the $2,000 top prize.

4 8 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

sidelines.

The University of

Central Fl( )rida won

overall honors and

claimed the $2,000

top prize.

That group was

followed by. in

order, Clemson,

Daytona Community

College, Kentucky

Advanced Technol­

ogy Center, Ken-

,

D.

1

tucky-Tech, Berea

College; Louisiana i

Tech, Fort Valley State College, Duke

and Alcorn State.

"We were a

couple of hours

short of working out

the problems,"

laments Tech team

leader Brian Cox, EE

'90, who is working

on a bachelor's de­

gree in mechanical

engineering.

But the glitches

have been fixed, he

adds, and the Tech

group has a road-

worthy electric

vehicle that reaches

55 mph—a good

head start for Clean

Air Grand Prix II.

"Next year," says

Cox. "Definitely." •

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Truck-Stop Entrepreneur By John Dunn

The clays of the truck stop are numbered, says Lamar J. Perils,

a 1949 industrial engineer whose entrepreneurial bend led him into the truck-stop business. The services provided by truck stops are not going to end, he explains, but the indus­try is undergoing a trans­formation.

In 1971. at age 46, Perils founded Pedis Truckstop along the asphalt ribbon of Interstate-~5 that passes by Cordele, Ga. A few years later, Pedis entered the Harvard Business School's Small Company Manage­ment Program, now the Owner-Management Pro­gram, and the truck stop, employing 160 people, be­came a Harvard Business School case study.

"The truck stop is a market niche," observes Pedis, past chairman of the National Association of Truck Stop Operators (NATSO). "Its almost a misnomer. Today they're family-owned businesses."

Pedis says the modern truck stop is a multi-fac­eted business that not only caters to refueling diesel trucks and passenger cars, but often includes a restau­rant, retail store, repair shop and motel. One truck stop even has a chiro­practor's office located on the premises. Truck stops owned by Tech grad Lamar Pedis have been trend-setters in a stereotyped industry.

GEORGIA TECH • Pacesetters: Pedis 5 1

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Pacesetters

NATSO is considering changing its name to the National Association of Travel Centers, and Perlis is an ardent proponent of the change.

The modern truck stops will become, Perlis says, "shopping centers related to highway needs, appeal­ing to every kind of motor­ist in an atmosphere that is compatible to all."

With his self-control and compact stature, Perlis de­fies the stereotypical image of a burly truck-stop op­erator. In May, he returned to Georgia Tech as a visit­ing professor and spoke to a group of students about entrepreneurship.

Lamar Perlis had his academic career internipted by World

War II. He served as an officer in the U.S. Air Force and graduated two years later than his younger brother, Louis, IE '47. As a student, he was in the band, glee club and Phi Epsilon Pi fraternity. As an alumnus, Perlis has served on the President's Scholar­ship Committee.

"I grew up in what I would call an entrepre­neurial family," Perlis said. "We were basically country retail merchants." During the war, his mother rented out half of their home and his father acquired a fac­tory that manufactured trousers for the military.

After the war, Perlis married and began devel-

"Entrepreneurs tend to turn on a dime. When we look at something, if we like it, we try it"

oping a small shopping center in Cordele while helping manage the retail operation. The success of the shopping-center ven­ture led to others. In the 1960s, he became in­trigued with the possibili­ties of the truck-stop busi­ness. On a trip to Florida, he and his wife, Jackie, decided to start their own.

"An entrepreneur bets the farm on every deal that he makes," Perlis says. "There's never enough money; there are never adequate resources. Those who cross the threshold and establish sophisticated management companies use all of the same mana­gerial skills you develop at Tech. What I am saying to a large degree would sug­gest that I don't ascribe to the business teachings at Tech and Harvard. But I will tell you that a degree from an institution alone doesn't guarantee you suc­cess. If you ask me what one skill I would like, I would call it common sense. But the discipline that an education gives you is very great."

Perlis reflects that he entered the shopping-cen­ter development business

at the right time, and his timing for the truck-stop business proved to be right.

"Now the truck-stop industry has matured, just like the shopping-center business has matured," Perlis says. "Both of these industries are quite crowded; it's not an invita­tion to wealth."

While Perlis has the advantage of being estab­lished, he notes there is another side. "You can be established and be out­moded, losing business to more aggressive and larger companies. A larger corpo­ration will do a market study and take a much more formal approach. En­trepreneurs tend to turn on a dime. When we look at something, if we like it, we try it. We had three truck stops, we have two now. But a friend of mine who came along in the same era has about 30 and is considered the most suc­cessful in the business."

The Perlis brothers have been partners in a small chain of

South Georgia retail stores, a real estate company, the shopping-center develop­ment company, the truck-stop company, and a truck-parts business with a half-dozen South Georgia locations. At one time they had approximately 600 employees. The shopping-center operation was sold several years ago to a New

York stock-exchange firm. Now the Perlis company has approximately 270 em­ployees. The flagship truck stop in Cordele has ap­proximately 150 employ­ees and a weekly payroll of $26,000. Another truck stop in Cusseta, Ala., has approximately 75 employ­ees.

When he hires some­one, Perlis said, talent and experience are not the pri­mary criteria. "We hire a lot of people who are starting out in the world—the cooks and the dishwashers and the fuel-island people. But we look, not for expe­rience as we once did, and not for the grand personal­ity as we once did, but for the decency of the human being.

"I'm a control-type per­son," Perlis observes. "What success I've had comes more from direct control than absentee. But in contradiction to my hands-on management style, the truck-parts busi­ness has almost no hands-on management from me, and neither does the truck stop in Cusseta.

"Where we have good people, we have success. That has been a lifetime lesson for me," Perlis says. "You can control physical things, but you cannot control human beings. You can help them develop, you can work with them, but you don't manacle them, and you don't con­trol them." •

GEORGIA TECH • Pacesetters: Perils 5 3

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Research

The Real Ozone Villain

E fforts to control ozone in U.S. cities should focus on con­

trolling nitrogen oxides, not man-made hydrocar­bons, according to Dr. Wil­liam Chameides, director of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Georgia Tech.

Analysis of atmospheric chemistry in urban, rural, tropical and unpolluted marine environments has found that elevated con­centrations of ozone are associated with high levels of nitrogen oxides, ex­plains Chameides.

Ozone forms in the at­mosphere through a chemical reaction between nitrogen oxides and hydro­carbon compounds in the presence of sunlight. There are many different sources for the two types of com­pounds, but both types must be present before ozone can be created.

Scientists once believed they could ignore the pres­ence of naturally produced hydrocarbons because they account for only a few percent of the hydro­carbons measured in a typical urban area. But laboratory studies of the biogenic compounds have since shown them to be much more reactive than their man-made cousins— so reactive that they actu­ally account for more than 30 percent of the ozone-

forming chemical reactions in some urban areas.

This means, Chameides says, that even if all hu­man-made hydrocarbons could be eliminated through tough air-pollution controls, enough biogenic compounds would remain to carry out the reaction that forms ozone.

The research studied actual air-chemistry mea­

surements in urban areas> such as Atlanta, Los Ange­les, Detroit, Columbus and Baton Rouge; rural areas in Georgia and Pennsylvania; tropical rain forests in Bra­zil, and pristine environ­ments in the Atlantic and Pacific oceans.

"The total hydrocarbon reactivity measured in all four areas is not essentially the same," Chameides

Dr. Paul Kohl, professor of chemical engineering, foreground, and graduate student Kirk Vogt, say a thin film of titanium oxide serves as an adhesive, bonding layers of integrated circuit materials together.

says. "However, the nitro­gen-oxide concentrations increased by several orders of magnitude from the tropical and marine envi­ronments to the urban areas. This suggests that what is causing the ozone to be increasingly higher is not an increase in hydro­carbons, but the increase in nitrogen oxides." Chameides argues that the current strategy, which costs an estimated $30 bil­lion a year to implement, now needs revision.

"We have the technol­ogy to reduce nitrogen ox­ide levels, and we could change our patterns of fuel burning," he says.

Both hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides are formed by the burning of fuel in automobiles. Fossil-fuel burning facilities such as power plants also produce nitrogen oxides.

Bonding High-Speed Chips

Titanium, a lightweight metal best known for its use in advanced

aircraft, has the capability of bonding groups of inte­grated circuits into multi-chip modules that could result in smaller and faster computer components.

Georgia Tech research­ers say that a thin film of

GEORGIA TECH • Research 5 5

Research

titanium oxide serves as an adhesive that helps bond electronic materials in an integrated circuit.

"This process may be of substantial value in inte­grated circuit and multi-chip module technology," says Dr. Paul A. Kohl, professor of chemical engi­neering. It could allow engineers to replace alumi­num on integrated circuits with more conductive ma­terial such as copper, gold or silver, he said.

Although gold and silver are better conductors than aluminum, they do not form stable oxides and are more difficult to use in layering circuits. Kohl and graduate smdent Kirkland W. Vogt believe they have solved the problem by de­positing a thin film of tita­nium metal on gold con­ducting films. The titanium adheres to the gold and forms an insulating oxide upon which researchers can build layers of silicon dioxide or polymers.

"It's a simple one-step process that allows us to switch back and forth be­tween insulators and met­als at will without having to worry about adhesion for each," says Kohl. "In our work with multichip modules, we use this ex­clusively to get adhesion. It's a kind of universal ad­hesion layer for us."

Multichip modules will allow the miniaturization of computer components by allowing several inte­

grated circuits to be placed into a single package in the space normally re­quired for just one circuit.

"This can replace sev­eral packages of chips in­side a computer," Kohl ex­plains. "All the intercon­nection is provided on the base material, so you end up with a very dense array of circuits."

Engineers would like to use the higher-conductivity metals to increase the speed of the circuits and to reduce the current they •must carry. Because the chips are closer together, the electrons carrying sig­nals have less distance to travel, which adds speed to computing work.

Going with the Flow: The Best in Traffic Control

A computer program IJk originally developed

JL J L to help military pilots deal with enemy threats is now being used to ease a form of civilian combat—traffic congestion at major sporting events.

Computer scientists at GTRI have adapted a soft­ware program created for military operations to traf­fic control. The program, called TERMINUS, senses traffic conditions and regu­lates the operation of sig­nal lights to optimize the flow of vehicles on city streets.

The initial application for

Getting to and away from a sports stadium parking area may be easier for Tech graduate smdent Khalid Elibiary—and everyone else—in the future, thanks to a new GTRI computer program.

the system simulates traffic conditions at Atlanta-Fulton County Stadium, home of the Atlanta Braves. The system also incorpo­rates the Georgia Dome and the Omni in preparing to control traffic during the 1996 Olympic Games.

The program displays an animated color map of streets, parking lots and traffic conditions in poten­tial problem areas, and even provides a computer-generated sound of crash­ing vehicles to alert opera­tors to traffic accidents. In addition to the network of streets and parking lots, the system's high-resolu­tion color monitor shows the number of cars in each parking lot and each seg­ment of roadway in the stadium area.

TERMINUS, which stands for Traffic Event Re­sponse and Management for Intelligent Navigation Utilizing Signals, simulates the flow of traffic in the stadium area by represent­ing each intersection as a neuron, and each street segment between intersec­

tions as a neural intercon­nection.

Traditional serial com­puters operate in a se­quential fashion: disrupting one link of a long chain threatens the performance of an entire operation. In neural networks, informa­tion neurons share data and function in parallel.

Communication Key to Robot Teamwork

The ways that animal societies such as army ants, birds and

fish communicate are being studied by Tech re­searchers for the purpose of enhancing interaction among teams of robots.

"Our goal is to create a foundation theory that specifies, for a given task, the most reliable, efficient and robust means of inter­action among a number of robots," explains Dr. Ron Arkin, professor of com­puter science, whose work is sponsored by the Na­tional Science Foundation.

Continued on page 59.

5 6 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

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Research

Researchers study ways to get robots to interact for greater efficiency when changes occur in environments.

Arkin's project, a com­puter simulation that dem­onstrates that simple com­munication among a group of robots can significantly improve their efficiency, was among the presenta­tions at the IEEE Interna­tional Conference on Robotics and Automation held May 2 -6 in Atlanta. An estimated 700 interna­tional researchers from academia attended the event, which general chair Dr. Wayne Book of Geor­gia Tech called the premier research conference in robotics.

While multiple robots currently work together in predictable situations, such as automated guide vehicles that transport parts to other robots for assembly, Arkin and his colleagues are examining environments that are unknown or that change frequently, such as a min­ing operation involving human and vehicle traffic.

Cooperation among robots results despite lack of communication when one robot recruits others by bringing the target into their sensory fields. But in trials when robots are pro­grammed to communicate, the simulated robots do so by broadcasting their "state"—one of three high-level behavioral activities

PhD student Tucker Balch demonstrates a simulation of robotic teamwork.

they are involved in—to other robots. Companion robots in a wandering state listen to find the nearest robot that has spotted or retrieved a target. The wandering robot changes its behavior, making the successful robot its goal. When it is sufficiently close to the target, that becomes its objective, and the robot joins in the task at hand.

"This is a minimal form of communication and is used only to make forag­ing more efficient," Arkin says. "It keeps the robots from wandering too far away from the others and the goals. That, in turn, increases the potentials for cooperation and speeding up the task completion."

Arkin adds, "Efficient behavior is obtained with communication, since we trade the random wander­ing for actual work."

XSPICE: Simulated Circuits and the license Is No Cost

A software package Z A developed at Georgia

JL J L Tech for simulating circuits and higher-level electronic systems is avail­able to users at a no-cost license. Known as XSPICE, the program can also be used to simulate the opera­tion of some non-elec­tronic systems.

"XSPICE provides very powerful analog simulation at the circuit-card level as well as being useful for system-level simulation," says Fred L. Cox, senior re­search scientist with GTRT. "It is especially appropriate when you want to mix sys­tem-level simulation with analog simulation."

Introduced in 1992, XSPICE is an extended and

enhanced version of the popular SPICE analog-cir­cuit simulation program developed at the Univer­sity of California at Berke­ley. XSPICE permits users to simulate analog, digital and even non-electronic designs from the circuit level through the system level in a single simulator.

XSPICE is available for UNIX workstations and is supplied in source code form; it also has been used on HP/Apollo and Sun workstations. The XSPICE simulator and user's manual are available with a cost-free license arrange­ment for a distribution charge of $200.

For further information, contact the Office of Technology Licensing, Georgia Tech Research Corp., 400 Tenth Street, Atlanta, GA 30332-0415; (404)894-6287. •

GEORGIA TECH • Research 59

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A Friendly Revolution ByJohnLXinn

A primary goal of Dr. Z A James D. Foley,

JL J L director of the Graphics, Visualization and Usability Center in the Col­lege of Computing, is making a computer as in­

dispensable, and every bit as friendly, as a telephone.

But Foley is not talking about making computers more friendly just for com­puter buffs or for an office environment. He's talking about making computers friendly for everyone.

The Foley File Born—July 20, 1942, in Palmerton, Pa, Education—BS, electrical engineering, Lehigh Uni­versity, 1964; MS, electrical engineering, 1965; PhD, computer, Information and control engineering, University of Michigan, 1969. Outlook—"Georgia lech is an institution . . . . poised for success. It has very exciting opportuni­ties to move into the new Information age and the new age of electronically based information. It is an exciting, dynamic environment." Professional Interests—Research includes inter­active computer graphics, human factors of user-computer interface, user-interface software tools, scientific data visualization and multimedia inter­laces. For five years, he has focused his efforts on building the User-Interface Design Environment. Achievements—IFFF Fellow, for contributions to computer graphics; National Computer Graphics Association 1991 Academic Award; editor-in-chief, ACM Transactions on Graphics, 1991-present; co­author. Introduction to Computer Graphics t 199.5), Computer Graphics: Principles and Practice, (1990) and Fundamentals of Interactive Computer Graph­ics (1982). Leisure Interests—Skiing', sailing, and "puttering" in the garden, Participates in Tech's fitness program. Persons Most Admired—Professor John Karakash. head of electrical engineering at Lehigh and later clean of engineering, who is still active in his 80s as a mentor of students and researcher. President Jimmy Carter for his post-presidential In­volvement in significant causes.

"We technologists can­not assume that everyone is going to be as computer-sophisticated as we are," he emphasizes. "If we make that assumption, we are going to limit what can be done with computers.

"The whole history of technology is that we don't keep doing business as usual. We evolutionize, and every now and then, we revolutionize. I'm talk­ing about a revolution."

Foley is tall and relaxed, with an affable manner that is, well, friendly. He is seated in his office and on the bookshelf behind him are photographs of his family—his wife, Marylou, president of a travel com­pany in Washington, D.C., and his two daughters: Heather, who works with her mother, plans to pur­sue a master's degree in business administration; and Jennifer, a sophomore at Vanderbilt University, who is taking a leave from her studies next year to participate in a wilderness expedition with the Na­tional Outdoor Leadership School. Behind his wire-framed glasses, Foley's eyes are sincere. The revo­lution is real.

Nonetheless, just how friendly can a computer be?

Fl oley would like them to be on speaking terms, literally; to

shoulder a lot more of the

work; and to be a great deal more accommodating in providing information. And, while they're at it, how about a little show­manship?

If a student is research­ing President Dwight Eisenhower's cabinet, for example, Foley says the student should be able ver­bally to ask the c< miputer to "tell me about Eisen­hower's cabinet." And when that happens, it should be show time.

From data bases around the country, the computer retrieves and organizes in­formation about President Eisenhower and his cabi­net. Using expert system techniques derived from artificial intelligence and principles of graphic de­sign, the computer ar­ranges the information for an aesthetically pleasing presentation.

On the same basis, Foley says, a businessman might tell the computer to show the relationship be­tween sales for the past four quarters, corporate productivity for the past four quarters and the firm's inventory levels.

"The computer goes into the corporate data base, pulls out the infor­mation and visually, graphically portrays the information. Bang! There's the graph.

"This is user-friendliness taken to the next level—I

6 2 GEORGIA TECH • Summer 1993

GARY MRKK I'HOTO

Georgia Teclvs Foley: Attempting to create an advanced user-friendly "learning envfromnent" in computer technology.

specify my objectives and let the computer figure out how to satisfy them."

Another project would take computer-generated animation to a new pla­teau. "I want a computer-generated animation of someone to walk in a door, circle around a cof­fee table and sit down in a chair. As a computer ani­mator, I would like to sim­ply say that and have the computer do the path and motion planning. All the detailed behavior is calcu­lated by the computer." Such a breakthrough could cut the time required for animated productions from months and years to hours and minutes.

Animation combined with a computer capable of reacting to verbal in­structions would create opportunities that Foley sees as a whole new

"learning environment in a computer-generated envi­ronment." In learning a foreign language, French, for example, a person could interact with a realis­tic computer-generated animated Frenchman in a marketplace.

"You'll have a dia­logue," Foley suggests. "I would like to buy some tomatoes. This simulated person picks up the toma­toes and shows them to you. Of course, if you said the word you thought meant tomato, but really meant potato, you would see him picking up pota­toes instead."

One of the primary ap­peals of the GVU Center is its interdisciplinary focus, says Foley, former chair­man of the Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at George Washington Uni­

versity. The center has 30 faculty members and more than 100 graduate students from a cross-section of campus disciplines.

"Only about one-third of our faculty members are ' from the College of Com­puting," Foley says. "Con­tinuing the momentum of interdisciplinary research is absolutely essential. You can no longer look at a single technology in isola­tion. It is a question of how it fits with other tech­nologies.

"For us to be successful as a center, we must focus on taking the technology and taking what we know about how people think, work and operate, and putting those together in a single lab.

After receiving his PhD, Foley taught at the Univer­sity of North Carolina.

"I started thinking about

how to convey information to people," Foley says. "It broadened my interest be­yond the computer-graph­ics technology of how to make realistic pictures to what the graphics images are used for and how to effectively convey the in­formation.

"That's really what it is about. How do you take this great technology and get it into the hands of people so that people can do useful things with it?

"Computers are full of information," Foley ob­serves. "Our ability to get at that information has not been increasing at nearly the rate at which the amount of information, or the complexity of informa­tion, has been increasing. But the number of instruc­tions per second that com­puters can execute keeps going up tremendously. •

GEORGIA TECH • Profile: Foley 6 3

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